Do you believe in Limbo or Purgatory?

Question

Do you think there really is such a place?

Andrew, was I asleep at the wheel? The pope got rid of limbo & purgatory?

Father K with all due respect the quotes from the bible only tell me what the book says. My soul tells me otherwise.

Answer 1

they both sound like live without Ice cream.

Answer 2

well I am Roman Catholic, so I DO believe in the existence of Purgatory and the importance of praying for people in Purgatory. When I read this question, however, I saw the other side of the question where it reads about Limbo. When I was a younger kid I heard members of my family debating about it, so when i heard about Limbo after that I thought it was nonsense. After I read this though I wanted to be sure, so I started looking it up and I saw that the most common belief about Limbo is that it was the place where people who lived good lives would go (before Jesus opened the gates of Heaven of course)...this shocked me, seeing that after watching the PASSION time after time again i would always ask myself, "well if at THAT moment when Jesus was resurrected and ascended into Heaven, then what did the people who were good and were supposed to go to Heaven do before that???"it totally fit like a puzzle in my mind. but i haven't looked into it that much and only saw a few sites.. so I'd love to hear the rest of this discussion.

hope i helped :]

Answer 3

Andrew is all the way wrong. Limbo was never an official Church teaching. Purgatory is still believed, and Father K explained it perfectly.

Answer 4

Yes to both... yet they are not actual places but states of existence.

Being born and raised in West Tx, my description of Purgatory:
You've got mud on your boots but Pa won't let you in until you are clean. Thus, you have to take your boots off in the "mud room", kind of like a porch, and clean yerself up before comin' on in to dinner.
"If the work which any man has built on the foundation [which is Christ] survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor 3: 14-15).

Unless you have been absolved of all of your sins before death, you are still in a state of sin or uncleanliness. Purgatory is where this cleansing takes place. Since you cannot pray for yourself in this state, others must pray for you. Thus the spiritual act of mercy, praying for the living and the dead.
"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (2 Maccabees 12:43-46)

Which leads to limbo:
All humans are born with original sin... Thanks Adam, appreciate it, Eve. So there needs to be a destinction between those who have sinned knowingly and have yet to do penance (purgatory) and those whose only sin is that of man, original sin. If an innocent who has not been baptized dies, he or she may not enter Heaven immediately but will remain in a "temporary paradise" until all are called to Heaven.
"Wherefore as by one man (Adam) sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)

EDIT: This is where it gets sticky... just because the actual words "purgatory" and "limbo" are not exactly used in Scripture, does not mean that it does not exist. Hmmm... almost sounds like something an atheist might say. Just thinking out loud.

Answer 5

No. Not as they are generally thought of. There is no place mentioned in the Bible where people work off their sins or work their way into the presence of God. Still the dead who die in their sins are held someone until the day of judgment, but for the believer "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

Answer 6

Limbo = NO.

Purgatory = Yes.

Since God expects perfection and pure holiness in His Presence - it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

No - I'm NOT Roman Catholic.

Answer 7

Nope

Answer 8

No. There is no biblical support for either of these ideas. Many believe they are the brainchild of a pope.

Answer 9

I believe in the ground and rotting or burning from cremation.
Nothing after that.

:D

Answer 10

absolutely it is a place of purification prior to being with god.
For there shall be nothing that offends in heaven.